A youthful lineup of Twins prospects and newcomers on Sunday went to work on the Boston Red Sox and blasted Beantown with 19 hits for an easy 9-3 win.
Mickey Gasper, who made the big-league club, hit a home run, while six other other players — Jeferson Morales, Kyler Fedko, Jake Rucker, Austin Martin, DaShawn Keirsey Jr. and Armando Alvarez — had two hits apiece.
That was plenty of support for starter Joe Ryan who picked up the win. He allowed a run over four-plus innings with four strikeouts.
So the youngsters did their job. How would the A-team respond on Monday? Well, they looked a lot better than they did in their ho-hum loss to the Toronto Blue Jays by beating the Pittsburgh Pirates, 5-1.
Eddie Julien went deep, Byron Buxton did the same, plus they got doubles from Jose Miranda and the sizzling Ty France, who went 3-for-3 and has 21 hits in 44 at bats for a .477 average this spring. Cross your fingers that isn’t a fluke.
Bailey Ober worked three frames to get the win. The artist formerly known as Louie Varland and Mr. Efficient worked a scoreless fifth inning on 12 pitches and closer Jhoan Duran struck out the side in the ninth.
Extra innings…
-Gasper made the team and so did Keirsey Jr.
-The regular season is almost here. The Twins have one more spring game against the Colorado Rockies on Tuesday. They have a travel day on Wednesday and then the 2025 season begins Thursday in St. Louis for the Cardinals’ home opener. The Twins’ home opener is April 3 against the Houston Astros.
The forecast for the St. Louis area shows a high of 70 degrees on Thursday with a chance of showers, according to the National Weather Service. As for the Twin Cities, it appears it could be warmer than usual. There’s a forecast high of 69 degrees on Friday with overnight lows in the 40s. By Monday, though, the highs drop into the 40s, the NWS data show.